During a recent webinar I presented with SMRP, entitled “Root Cause Analysis: It’s a Money Maker, Not a Money Taker”, I was fortunate to have many deep thinkers in my virtual audience. 

They floated some questions related to conducting ‘RCA’s on non-mechanical situations. To my fellow veterans in this RCA space, this is a relatively easy question to properly address, but it did get me to thinking. I think those of us who do this for a living, take for granted that we know a properly facilitated RCA, can apply to any undesirable outcome, no matter the industry or the bad outcome.

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When we look at the widely used and misunderstood tool of Root Cause Analysis (RCA), we should reflect its interpretation in our own environments. Think about it: when is RCA typically requested and applied in our environment? Based on my experience, it is typically requested and applied when:

• Someone is injured
• There is a catastrophic damage
• There is an environmental incident
• There is a “near miss” with high severity potential
• There is public scrutiny over an issue that makes the news
• There is a quality issue that a valued customer is complaining about

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